19) District 9 – there aren’t many main stream movies that are about South Africa, where I’m from.  Most movies about aliens almost always happen in the United States, but this happened in South Africa.  So besides its location, the story and the characters really drive the movie’s success.

18) Superbad - Superbad may not be the most eye opening film of the decade, or one with the best acting you’ll ever find, but it made me laugh from beginning to end.  It made the ordinary extraordinary in an incredibly believable way.

17) The Incredibles – for me, this was the first CG movie that moved away from all the Disney fluff.  I must have seen this movie a dozen times and it still makes me say “Wow, good movie, good movie.”

16) Spirited Away – I love Japanese Animation.  I appreciate it’s art form.  The Japanese really know how to intensify action and weave phenomenal stories.  Spirited Away was the first Japanese Animated film that tugged at the old heart string.

15) Sin City – for me this was like watching an experiment gone right.  I had never watched a movie unfold the way Sin City did.  It’s my number 15 simply because of its comic-like way of unveiling an awesome story.

14) Sexy Beast – “If a woman sticks her finger in your asshole, does that mean she likes you?”  I will never forget that line, and the giant bolder that landed in the swimming pool in the opening scene.  There’s an underlying dynamic in this film, and it reveals the humanity of even the simplest criminal mind.

13) Amelie – this French flick made me laugh until my sides exploded (not literally of course).  The story was simply amazing.  It was simple, yet so complex because it was character driven.

12) Inglorious Basterds – a Tarantino flick had to be on my list.  I pick this one because as funny as it was at times, there was so much pain behind each line, behind each action, especially during the opening scene.  Bravo Mr. Tarantino.

11) UP – It’s a recent CG film, but damn does it deliver.  I swear when movies like this tug at the old heart string it has to go on my top 20 list.  I loved up because it made me feel a little better about old people, and acknowledge that hey I too am getting older.

And now for the final ten.  Think of this not as a list of awesome movies, but as list of movies I would take with me if I was going to be stuck on an island with a TV and a DVD player and could only take ten movies with me.  These movies would be the movies I’d take.

10) Jet Li’s Fearless – gives me culture, history, a great story told in a fantastic way, and some of the best fighting sequences I’ve seen.  The great thing about this movie is that it’s not mainly about fighting, but it’s about the human spirit.  It’s also about patriotism and friendship.

9) O Brother Where Art Thou – It’s a real testament to how far a man will go to find himself.  This movie challenges the dynamics of race, poverty, and societal progress.

Snatch – this movie is a thrill ride from beginning to end.  It mixes terrific dialogue with great action.  The best part about it is how it emphasizes that one cannot live without a good sense of irony.

7) Wall-E – if UP pulled at the old heart strings, this movie did it first.  A robot that can evoke more of an emotional response than a human belongs on the top ten.  Plus the story is awesome.

6) Black Hawk Down – again, a movie that shows how far our humanity will take us.  It draws lines across whats right and wrong.  And I love it because of all the tactical action and shooting.

5) Lord of The Rings:  Two Towers – the first one and the last one were alright, but this one took one of the most boring books, in my opinion, and turned it into a master piece.  I’m a huge fan of the fantasy genre so this movie is top.

4) Star Trek 2009 – after watching a few Shatner films, and all the Picard films, this film kills them all.  Simply because Abrams took an already fantastic story and made it look like it was supposed to, and what do you know, and awesome film.

3) The Dark Knight – can anyone really dispute this as a great film.  For me it just made Batman the right way.  I’m a big fan of the Bat, and so for me this movie really did it the right way.  However, it’s not number two because the Joker stole the show.

2) The Departed – I never thought I’d put any movie with Leonardo Decaprio in it, on my top ten, but I have to hand it to the fellow, he did good.  The sound track, the cinematography, the acting, everything was just superb.

1) Gladiator – this movie blew me away in 2000 and it still continues to blow me away now.  You couldn’t remake this movie if you wanted to, it’s solid.  Crowe deserved the oscar without a doubt.  The soundtrack was breathtaking, the acting was outstanding, the cinematography was unmatched then and is really in some way still unmatched now.  Great movie.  I’d probably watch a million times on my little island.

And there you have it my top twenty film of the decade.

The first thing that stood out for me is that people still don’t believe in aliens.  It makes sense since the universe is being explored and still no aliens.  Just goes to show you that no matter what era we’re in, people will still need something to believe in, even something like aliens.  I also like the fact that even in the future cows are still called Bessie.  I know it’s trivial, but it says something to me.  I feel that by sticking with the more earthly traditions it connects more with me than if there was no cows or earthly livestock on other planets.

War does crazy things to people, and this is evident throughout the episode.  The recent war sounds like prison, but then again what war doesn’t.  The notion that you can survive the war but not the real world is so powerful and true.  It reminds me of how the veterans of the Vietnam War were treated when they returned.  They fought for “freedom” but were shunned by those who they were fighting for.

This episode shows us how each person deals with death differently. Shepherd goes through it quietly and reflectively.  Jayne works out because it makes him feel alive.  Kaylee listens to the message left by the “dead” man.  Mal and Zoe commemorate by telling war stories about the “deceased.”  River lies on the coffin and it seems like she almost embraces death.  Simon, however, doesn’t seem to deal with death in any way.  I think it’s because he’s a doctor and is always the closest and most used to death, and that is why he is the most removed from it.

My favorite part was when Mal receives the large package, opens it, and sees his dead friend, and Jayne says, “What ya’ll order a dead guy for?”  So funny!

The last episode was fantastic.  I was really sad that it ended.  I’m glad they made the movie, because I would have rioted.  I give this outstanding episode a 5 out of 5.

There’s still tension between Inara and Mal.  Frankly I wish they would just talk about their feelings and get it over with.  I mean I know this world they live in sucks, especially if you’re someone who has completely different ideals, but love is universal and should be cherished.  That’s not to say that Mal and Inara are in love, but there is definitely something there.  Those small intimate moments say a lot about their feelings.

This is also the first episode that shows a large body of water.  When I first saw the ocean I was stunned.  I thought that people just terraformed dry planets, but I guess the Alliance gets the nice ones, which of course reflects on a society perpetuated by classes.

I really liked Saphron, Mal’s “wife.”  She’s so cunning and sly.  It seems like everyone has an angle.  No one is straight-faced.  Nothing has really changed from today’s society.  I guess human beings will always be the same.  You will have those that want to rule and induce control, and you will always have those who will fight against those ideals.  Mal is like the gray matter in between.  He tries to fight for freedom, but at times walks a thin line by taking Alliance based jobs.

I love how the Chinese meshes so well with English.  It’s almost sonorous.

My favorite part is when River says to Jayne, “I can kill you with my brain,” after Simon finds out that Jayne betrayed him on Ariel.  I kinda wanted Simon to react differently.  I wanted him to be angrier.

The great visuals, and Mrs. Reynolds, who makes me feel almost guilty watching her, make this episode one of the best.  I give it 5 out of 5.

The episode also serves as a reminder that even protecting a whorehouse is fighting for freedom.  I think Mal took the job to show Inara he cares about what she cares about.  That’s why it came as a big surprise when he slept with the lead companion.  also watching Inara cry showed that she really cares from Mal, and not just in a friendly way, but in an intimate way.  It came as an even bigger surprise when she decides to leave Serenity.  I seriously thought she would kiss him and stay, but once again the world seems to tear people apart.

My favorite part in the episode was when Jayne got all dressed up for the whorehouse.  It was so in his character, but so out of normal character that I couldn’t stop laughing.

The western theme was solidified with “Amazing Grace,” which amazed me because it evoked images of freedom.  Under the performance light I really enjoyed the depiction of theater.  I especially enjoyed that it was performed in Chinese.

I give this episode a 5 out of 5, cause it had an awesome gun battle.

This episode also answers why Mal has so much angst toward any kind of betrayal.  It tells us why he almost shot Jayne off Serenity when Jayne betrayed Simon and River on Ariel.  So it seems that this betrayal is the one thing difficult to forgive and forget, yet through his experiences Mal begins to understand that people are human, and are fallible.

I liked how when Wash was playing with the two dinosaurs, the T-Rex (Carnivore) definitely Alliance, and the Stegosaurus (Herbivore) definitely Independence.  It’s so simple yet the message is extremely poignant.   As Mal said “that’s what governments are for, to get in a man’s way.”

I saw that china had a lot of influence on the entire culture.  Mal and the crew always mix their English with Chinese phrases.  In fact, when they landed on Persephone there was a huge Chinese population.  I like how this fact was evident throughout the series, but presented in a subtle way.  It says that people have been influenced by Chinese culture, but still retain their own.

There were some great visuals, like the mounted turret, the ship crash, the moving picture, and just the general surrounding.  I just wish it was like this throughout the series.

The episode was simply terrific, offering insight into the world, and into each member of the crew.  I give this episode a whopping 5 out of 5.

when the episode began I finally thought that Simon and Kaylee were going to take their apparent feelings to the next level.  They were all liquored up and everything, but to my dismay for the purposes of intrigue i was denied this simple pleasure.  If the network was going to cancel the show by this time, I would think they’d go all out for a feeling fest, but nothing.

This was the only episode where I seriously began to realize what river is capable of.  It’s like she can read people’s thoughts, but more than that, she can read their intentions, and that is scary because the crew is full of false intentions; like Simon isn’t really thinking about Kaylee, and Shepherd doesn’t really care much for joking around with Jayne.  River becomes a very interesting conduit between what each character is thinking.  This makes it interesting to hear what the crew think of River.  Simon alludes to how she’s just deeply intuitive.  Mal thinks she a psychic reader, and Zoe thinks she could be an assassin.  It’s funny because if you’ve watched the motion picture River is all three of those.

What I really enjoyed was the new character, Early the bounty hunter.  He was just freakishly awesome.  He was very scary, and my heart was pounding every second of the show.  There was one weird moment, however.  The whole Lion-Alliance dialogue made no sense at all.  It came completely out of nowhere.  What did surprise me was when Early said that Book was no shepherd, and that made me really think about what Shepherd really did.  I think he was an Alliance operative, who found that the Alliance was not what it seemed.

My favorite part was when Early tells Simon that he needs to get shot, stabbed, or get his leg cut off, just to experience what it feels like.

Jubile Early steals the show this time around to give it 5 out of 5.  The show is getting better and better.  I’m loving it.

A nice surprise is the villain from the first episode (Train Job), Adelai Niska; and he is a mean one.  He also mentions the philosophy of Shun Yu, which begs the question, What was Shepherd into.  I’m only wondering because the way Shepherd asks Simon is incredibly similar to the way Niska asks one of his victims.

What was also interesting about this episode is finding out that fresh fruit is not readily available.  We don’t know how things were before the Alliance winning the war, but it seems that not everyone is together, and not everyone eats quality food.  It’s the same as today, but at least we can get fresh food.  To me that is a very powerful message; people risking their lives to get money anyway they can, so that they can enjoy some fresh apples.

But what this episode really concentrates on is Wash’s masculinity, with regard to Zoe and Mal’s past.  This leads to the funniest part in the episode, when Wash and Mal are being tortured by Niska.  Wash tells Mal that he and Zoe took vows to “Love, Honor, and Obey.”  Mal asks, “She said she would obey?”  Wash replies, “Well to Love and Honor.”  The fact that their talking about this while being shocked to death was hilarious.  However, when Zoe comes to rescue the two she chooses Wash over Mal, which shows us who she really wants, not that she’s ever chosen the captain.  This whole scene solidifies Zoe’s and Wash’s relationship.  I like closure, it’s like a warm blanket.

It was also great to see a fantastic shootem up gun fight.  That was the second best part.

The mystery about Shepherd, the torturous conversation between Mal and Wash, and the daring rescue, involving the entire crew, make the episode one to remember.  I give this episode a 5 out 5.

The Alliance further becomes even more mysterious in this episode.  Through River and the Alliance agents that appear at the end of the episode there seems to be more under the surface.  River suddenly becomes the central character of the story, that is she becomes the ultimate motivator for Mal and the crew, because they are either running away to shelter River, or charging in to save her.  In light of this, for me personally, River is just getting annoying.  I think that there’s way too much crazy in her.  In the beginning I went along with it, but she wasn’t getting any better, and she would go on these weir tirades, and moments of clairvoyance.  It was highly entertaining and interesting, but there should have gradually been less crazy.

In the beginning of the episode River slashes Jayne with a knife, this just came as a really big surprise.  Now Jayne trusts Simon and River even less.  The only person Jayne seems to trust is Mal.  I’m not sure why, but Jayne has an underlying respect for the captain.  Perhaps Jayne thinks that Mal sees something inside him, besides his inability to about anyone but himself.  I think this is the reason Mal reacts with violence when he discovers Jayne had betrayed Simon and River to the Feds.  The disappointment in Mal’s eyes said it all.

The visuals were awesome.  I loved the overhead shot of Serenity’s shuttle flying across Ariel.  I loved the part when Simon looked at River’s brain, which finally answered some questions about her craziness.  I was like “Oh that’s why.”  The hospital was by far the most suggestive and allusive visual scene.  There was just so much context behind the pale blue lighting, which represented a kind of maniacal, eerie, and jarring atmosphere.  I loved the dialogue between Zoe and Mal when they were carting the corpses.  Zoe says, “I don’t think anyone smiles in hospitals.”  Mal replies, “Sure they do, they’re rich, they’re happy.”  Awesome lines!  But my favorite part of the episode is when Zoe, Jayne, and Mal are trying to learn medical jargon, only to never have to use it.

As a last statement, I would change the title of the episode.  “Ariel” is way too vague for me.  I would have called the episode “Medicine Run.”  It’s not as pretty, but it’s just as vague, but there is a subtle message.

With all the brilliant elements within the episode, giving this episode anything less than a 5 out of 5 would be silly.

This episode starts Simon and River Tam’s past.  They were rich, and very proper people.  Zach Effron plays the little Simon Tam (Unbelievable).  There were some questions raised during the flashbacks.  The children were talking about the Alliance and Independence, which sounds so much like the North and the South, except in the world of Firefly the Independence  (South/Confederacy) is considered to be the sympathetic good guy (more or less).  While the Alliance (North/Union) is presented as hostile, non-caring, and generally annoying.  One could infer that Firefly is an anti-American show, which could be a good reason for it’s cancellation.

There’s a ton of western backdrop.  The crew of the serenity are herding cows for Pete’s sake.  Jayne is wearing a cowboy hat.  I like a cowboy movie as much as the next Clint Eastwood fan, but by now I would really like to see more fantastical environment, with more science-fiction like elements.  Perhaps some shoot outs on a space station.  I have to admire a sci-fi show that is able to avoid the high costs of production.  The sets don’t need to have anything but what we’ve seen:  A colonial home or storefront, and a clear field with a cow farm.  Sheer brilliance financially.  If HBO made the show, they’d spend a fortune on each set design and location, there would be a lot more violence and profanity, and the show would just be darker, which would take away from the way it was done.  The only proper sci-fi elements is the ship, and the weapons.

Continuing on the line of the show, and this episode in particular, being about a skewed, parallel version of the aftermath of the American Civil War.  The planet’s that Mal and the crew visit are all Independence friendly planets because Reynolds fought for the Independence during the war.  What’s interesting is that almost every planet is like Arizona, or anywhere else from the mid-west.  There is also constant mention of the war, which means that it happened recently.

Shepherd is also the focus of the episode.  He gets hurt in the cross fire of a gun fight.  Since Simon and River disappear, Mal calls the alliance for some medical help.  The Alliance were refusing to help until they find out who Shepherd is.  As Mal says, “It looks like everyone’s got a story to tell.”  At the same time Simon and River get kidnapped by the towns people.  The people need a doctor.  And what do you know, when River goes a little telepathic, it turns into an all out witch burning ceremony.

This time around the show was very revealing.  The story was tight, and answered a lot of previously asked questions about the world Firefly is set in.  I give this episode 4 out of 5, only because I feel like the episode could have used a little more sci-fi.

I always wind up watching Firefly at night.  I think that the pace of the show needs a night viewing.  If I were to watch the show during the day I don’t think I’d take away the same message.  There is something interesting about the episode, and that being the women of Serenity.  Like any woman, whether in the past, the present, or the future, they all want to shop, shop, shop, even when they have no need for it.  These little elements give the episode, and the show in general a human interest.

As usual the story is interesting.  It starts with action, continues with some romanticized interlude, and the continues with the unraveling of the plot, which inevitably rolls into action and mystery.  Now that is everything a growing show needs.  In this particular episode the western element kind of fades away when Inara, Inara’s escort, Mal, and Kaylee go to a ball.  It’s as if there was an instant shift from crap to luxury.

Everyone also always wants to eat.  I guess being renegades, lowlifes, and general vagabonds doesn’t pay or feed you.  The second Kaylee sees the buffet table at the ball, she runs to it.  Now, even on the sixth episode I still have no indication what River has been through, or what she had seen.  The mystery is killing me.  I must know.

There is, however, something odd about the episode; something revealing.  For example, people fly in space ships, yet they dress like they are in the 1800s.  It’s a refreshing concept.  It’s easy on the costuming costs, and it’s just simple to convey the right messages.  Those that dress like vagrants are more or less poor and uncivilized, ready to kill for a buck, and those who dress like royal pomp are often those pretend to be more civilized, and will also kill for a buck.

This episode goes back to the old “gloved challenge”.  Mal has to sword duel some rich swine.  That’s was my favorite part.  His expression when he realizes that it’s a sword fight is priceless.  The duel doesn’t last very long, but the action is fast and bloody.  However, through the duel I found out that the company of a woman is not very easy to come by in this torn universe, that’s why they have companions.

This time around the episode was a little slow, so I give it a 3 out of 5